Indians May Have to Wait Over 150 Years For US Green Card : Report

To procure a green card, Indian citizens may have to wait for as long as 151 years even who possess advanced degrees. U.S. Green card or permanent residency card authorizes immigrants to live and work in their county permanently. These calculations are given by the Washington-based think-tank, Cato Institute. The calculations are based on the number of green cards issued in 2017.

As of April 20, 2018, there were 632,219 Indian immigrants and their spouses and minor childrenwaiting for green cards. The categories include EB-1: the candidates with extraordinary ability; EB-2: with advanced degrees; EB-3: the applicants with bachelor’s degree. EB stands for employment based. The shortest wait is for the highest skilled category for EB-1 immigrants with “extraordinary ability”.The extraordinary immigrants from India will be made to wait for just 6 years before they are granted thegreen card of U.S.

According to the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), there are 34,824 applicants from India who applied under the EB-1 category along with their 48,754 spouse and children. Therefore through EB 1 category there are 83,578 Indians in queue for the green card under EB-1 category. Under EB-3 immigrants category there are 54,892 Indians clubbed with 60,381 spouses and children, taking the total to 1,15,273.

The biggest backlog, however, is for EB-2 workers, who have advanced degrees. They will have to wait 151 years for a green card at current rates of visa issuances. Obviously, unless the law changes, they will have died or left by that point,” Cato Institute said. Under EB-2 category, the total applicants, their spouses and children made a total to 4,33,368. The existing laws imposes per-country-limit of 7%. In all 306,400 primary Indian applicants are waiting for their green cards.Clubbed with their spouses and children numbering 325,819.

According to the latest USCIS figures in 2017, only 22,602 Indians were issued the legal permanent residency cards.Of these 13,082 were in the EB-1 category, 2,879 in EB-2 category and 6,641 in Eb-3 category. Cato Institute said the green card allocation is not based on the backlog, so 69% of the backlog is in the EB-2 category, but it received only 13% of the green cards issued in 2017.